A court hearing into their case has been set for October 19, according to Beglitis. On Friday, Pakistani authorities also put Nikos Pappas under house arrest, the Greek head of salvage operations for the Tasman Spirit, a spokesman for his company Tsavliris International told AFP.

Source:

Tasman Spirit crew get bail

---The judicial magistrate, West, on Saturday admitted the Tasman Spirit crew to bail against a surety of Rs500,000 each. JM Mumtaz Solangi also ordered the applicants to deposit their passports and CD certificates with the district Nazir.

Earlier, the Docks police submitted an FIR against the accused crew of the Tasman Spirit, the grounded oil tanker. The police sought physical remand of the crew till Oct 17.

Advocates Ilyas Khan and Jameel appearing for the accused submitted that all sections under which the accused were booked were bailable.

Euro Asian accuses Karlac of not paying for the fuel oil, which Euro Asian claims was originally loaded onto the Windsor in Odessa without its knowledge.

It is alleged that Karlac tried to dispose of the cargo without Euro Asian's consent.

John Alafouzos's Ermis is understood to have received over $2m for delays of more than 100 days that the tanker experienced in the Ukraine.

A Ukrainian transport ministry-headed letter has now been circulated to maritime authorities in the Mediterranean, requesting them to seize the Windsor and its cargo until the conflict has been settled.

The ship has been in the Ukraine four months but departed last week on a charter to Vitoil. It is said to have passed the Dardanelles five days later.

A senior manager at Euro Asian's office in London says the fuel-oil cargo was arrested because of the dispute. The order was lifted on 22 September but reinstated on 24 September. The Windsor sailed late the same evening despite this.

Euro Asian says its name has been incorrectly given as the shipper on the cargo manifest and bill of lading.

The cargo forms part of 64,000 tonnes of fuel oil on the ship, which was spot-fixed by Vitoil as long ago as last May.

There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Vitoil. Euro-Asian's attack is aimed at Karlac, which until recently is understood to have controlled sales of products through Odessa.

Dmitri Neshadin of Karlac in Moscow tells TradeWinds that he is no longer involved in the cargo dispute and he refers all questions to the company's registered office in Cyprus. A Karlac spokeswoman there promised to respond to TradeWinds' questions but by press time had not called back.

Peter Wright, chartering manager for Ermis, said: "This is a dispute between cargo interests that is in the hands of lawyers and we are the innocent party. We are just under instructions from Vitoil to perform a voyage."

He says that the Windsor sailed only after the arrest on the cargo was lifted by a court in Kiev. Two lawyers appointed by Ermis's protection-and-indemnity club Gard were present in the Ukraine. Customs agreed that the ship could leave.

"We had full clearance to sail and have done absolutely nothing wrong," said Wright.

He says most of the demurrage has been settled. The $2m-plus so far paid out is based on a rate of around $21,000 a day. The ship arrived in Odessa on 26 May.

"Vitoil in our eyes have acted as first-class charterers," said Wright.

However, he declines to give the latest position of the Windsor. It is said to have been fixed in Singapore but market sources say it could be anywhere.

Meanwhile, there are unsubstantiated rumours in the market that Karlac has financial troubles and that a couple of other earlier fixtures involving the trading intermediary did not take place.

John A Xylas, chief executive of Ariston Navigation, appeared to have been identified as the most computer-literate of the club's board members and wore this mantle lightly in handling a page-by-page presentation and briefing some of the shipping community's great and good on ideas for further developing the slick-looking site.

The club's website has been created and is being hosted as a donation by Mia Jensen's Marine Marketing firm with technical assistance from M&M of Athens, and can be viewed at www. marine-marketing.gr via the "clients" or "users" sections.

It seems just the tip of the iceberg in what looks like a concerted effort under present president George Dalacouras to bring the club into the 21st century.

Internet pages yesterday were shown on a large screen using the club's new Canon projection system, while behind the scenes new group fax and e-mail programs are apparently speeding communication with its membership of more than 700 executives.

It is all a far cry from 1966 when four "founding fathers" conceived the idea of the club while celebrating the purchase of a Niarchos tanker.

That was done on the back of a bar price list at the Athens Hilton hotel, there being no equivalent watering hole nearer the waterfront.

Source: Lloyd's List, 3 Oct 2003

Marine Money & Tsakos Energy Navigation celebrate together

The conference lunch, however, will be devoted to TEN Ltd and the entire management team of TEN Ltd will be on hand to greet the delegates and guests and give a presentation of the company past, present and future. The event coincides with TEN Ltd's tenth anniversary since establishment and where better to celebrate than with Marine Money and an unprecedented gathering of shipping experts and executives in Greece.

For further information on the conference contact Mia Jensen at marine.money@marine-marketing.gr

Source: Marine Money Greece, 1 Oct 2003

TEN dividend creates healthy 6.5% yield

Whether done by design, or simply by responding to what investors want, several of the tanker companies seem to be evolving into hybrid debt/equity securities with hefty cash pay coupons backed by fixed rate employment. In the most recent example, Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited (TEN) declared today the Company's first half 2003 cash dividend of $0.50 per common share, lifting its annual dividend yield to a whopping 6.5%. The dividend is payable October 30, 2003 to stockholders of record on October 17, 2003. Since TEN listed in New York, the company has had a very strong policy of paying cash dividends representing between one-quarter and one-half of ordinary net income. The structure suits the company; Today, TEN has 18 vessels operating with medium or long-term employment contracts which account for 74% of estimated operating days or $37 million gross revenues for the remainder of 2003 and 57% for 2004 or $124 million in revenues - having earlier this week announced new time-charter contracts for the suezmaxes Decathlon and Pentathlon with Petrobras.

Source: www.marinemoney.com, Freshly Minted online, 1 Oct 2003

Greece and Russia distribute ENCs via Primar Stavanger

---Greece and Russia have concluded agreements with the Norwegian Hydrographic Service (NHS) on distributing their national electronic navigational charts (ENCs) through the Primar Stavanger international ENC coordination centre.

The Greek Hydrographic Office has pursued an extensive ENC production programme in recent years, and plans to release its first charts in late 2003. More than 300 ENC cells will cover Greek waters, and over 70 are already produced.

Given the importance of the Mediterranean for shipping, and with Spanish and French coverage approaching completion, the announcement that Greece is covering its waters with official ENCs is a positive signal.

Primar Stavanger has been distributing Russian ENCs for some time via an agreement with Transas.

"This is a positive collaboration, but we're now very pleased to have reached agreement directly with the Russian Hydrographic Office," says Frode Klepsvik, the hydrographer of Norway.

He notes that Russian ENCs are becoming increasingly important as tanker traffic expands through the Barents Sea and along the Norwegian coast, as well as through the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic.

Primar Stavanger currently offers 31 Russian ENCs, and this number is set to increase in the months to come.

Primar Stavanger can now offer a total of 1 390 charts, even before the Greek ENCs are included. These are sold at prices comparable with paper charts, including updates, through a network of authorised distributors.

Source: Digital Ship Ltd e-newletter, 29 Sep 2003

Major event on business between Europe and the Arab world in Piraeus

The event, sponsored by Foreign Minister George Papandreou and General Secretary of the Arab League Amr Moussa, will have six thematic units dealing with economic cooperation, transport and shipping, energy and oil, agriculture, tourism and culture.

Source: www.ekathimerini.com, 2 Oct 2003

Swedish Club strengthens Piraeus office

---A new, team-based organisation for The Swedish Club sees greater responsibility being passed to the club's Piraeus office.

From October 1 the focus is on personalised service, with five Area Teams concentrating on the delivery of H&M, P&I and FD&D covers in specific geographic regions.

Source: www.newsfront.gr, 3 Oct 2003

Minoan ship replica to sail seas

---A Greek admiral is realizing a dream to build the world's only replica of the Minoan ships that some 3,500 years ago helped the ancient civilization win dominance over the seas and travel as far as Asia and Africa.

Since no wreck of a Minoan ship has ever been found, Apostolos Kourtis has had to start from scratch, relying on ancient drawings and using the same methods as the Minoans who lived on the Mediterranean island of Crete from around 3000 B.C.

The 56-foot long and 12-foot wide ship with its round-shaped trunk looks like a traditional fishing boat as it emerges in a dockyard in the Cretean city of Chania. It is due to be launched for the first time on Dec. 1.

"It will creak and groan, but it will hold. It's a flexible boat designed to withstand tricky seas," Kourtis said. Minoan shipbuilders used tall, sturdy cypress trees to make their boats.

"The cypress tree's trunk was split in two. Both halves were then placed facing each other to guarantee symmetry," said Kourtis, a naval officer who has become a passionate student of ancient naval technology.

Kourtis' four-strong team has lashed the two trunk halves together with more than 2,600 feet of rope. A wooden frame in the form of the letter "A," the tip of which is at the ship's bow, clasps the vessel's two main parts together.

"The secret of the construction lies in this structure, making a ship out of a simple raft," he said.

To water-proof the hull, Minoan ships were covered with a linen cloth coated in fir or pine-tree resin. The coating was then whitened with lime and decorated. Kourtis said they would probably paint blue dolphins on the side of their boat, "like the ancients did."

The ship's name remains a closely guarded secret, but it will be carved on the hull in Minoans' linear B, one of Greece's oldest alphabets.

The last task will be installing benches for some 30 rowers before hoisting the flag.

The replica will set out on its maiden voyage from Crete on June 5, 2004, just in time to reach Athens for the Olympic Games starting in August.

Kourtis is hoping that the ship will be chosen to carry the 2004 Olympic flame on part of its journey between the island of Salamina, off Athens, and Piraeus, the Greek capital's harbor.

"The proposal is under consideration," Kourtis said.

"With 15 miles per day, the itinerary will be the same as in Minoan times, when ships only traveled at daylight from April to November," said Kourtis, who plans to captain the rowers, assisted by two steersmen and two sailors.

Daily stops are scheduled on islands lying between Chania and Athens. But with a distance of 150 nautical miles to cover, the trip will take 25 days, including eight full-day breaks.

Due to a lack of manpower, Kourtis' team has also used some modern mechanical means such as winches.

Made for commerce and war, Minoan ships were built in two months by crews of some 30 men. "We do not have more than four workers," he explained.

Kourtis is also short of manpower to row the boat once it is in the water. A team of volunteers has already been formed, but more men are needed.

"We need a second team to take turns. The young men here are not exactly pushing to get in," he said. After winding up his Olympic trip, the ship is to become the Chania naval museum's showcase exhibit. The private museum, financed by wealthy benefactors, has set aside one million dollars for the project.

Key representatives from the tanker industry will be coming to Piraeus to discuss critical issues that are defining a rapidly changing tanker sector. This two day event organised by Tanker Operator Magazine, will cover a host of topics including the regulatory impact of the Prestige and Erica accidents one year on, tanker & oil market, finance, crewing, class, vetting, flag, tanker management, health, safety & environment.